Gotham

A History of New York City to 1898

By: Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace

Narrated by: Victor Bevine

To European explorers, it was Eden, a paradise of waist-high grasses, towering stands of walnut, maple, chestnut, and oak, and forests that teemed with bears, wolves, raccoons, beavers, otters, and foxes. Today, it is the site of Broadway and Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, and the home of millions of people, who have come from every corner of the nation and the globe.

In Gotham, Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace have produced a monumental work of history, one that ranges from the Indian tribes that settled in and around the island of Manna-hata, to the consolidation of the five boroughs into Greater New York in 1898. It is an epic narrative, a story as vast and as varied as the city it chronicles, and it underscores that the history of New York is the story of our nation. Listeners will relive the tumultuous early years of New Amsterdam under the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant's despotic regime, Indian wars, slave resistance and revolt, the Revolutionary War and the defeat of Washington's army on Brooklyn Heights, the destructive seven years of British occupation, New York as the nation's first capital, the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, the Erie Canal and the coming of the railroads, the growth of the city as a port and financial center, the infamous draft riots of the Civil War, the great flood of immigrants, the rise of mass entertainment such as vaudeville and Coney Island, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the birth of the skyscraper. Here too is a cast of thousands - the rebel Jacob Leisler and the reformer Joanna Bethune; Clement Moore, who saved Greenwich Village from the city's street-grid plan; Herman Melville, who painted disillusioned portraits of city life; and Walt Whitman, who happily celebrated that same life. We meet the rebel Jacob Leisler and the reformer Joanna Bethune; Boss Tweed and his nemesis, cartoonist Thomas Nast; Emma Goldman and Nellie Bly; Jacob Riis and Horace Greeley; police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt; Colonel Waring and his "white angels" (who revolutionized the sanitation department); millionaires John Jacob Astor, Cornelius Vanderbilt, August Belmont, and William Randolph Hearst; and hundreds more who left their mark on this great city.

The events and people who crowd this audiobook guarantee that this is no mere local history. It is in fact a portrait of the heart and soul of America, and a book that will mesmerize everyone interested in the peaks and valleys of American life as found in the greatest city on earth. Gotham is dazzling, a fast-paced, brilliant narrative that carries the listener along as it threads hundreds of stories into one great blockbuster of a book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©1999 Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

the most comprehensive and inspiring history.

loved this book. read it first, then listened to it. unparalleled. should be the starting point for any amateur historians entry into the world of nyc history.

Looking to understand America, this is a must!

If you want to understand this country and what roles American’s played init this is the book for you! If you want to know New York City roles in making America great again this book is for you. Looking just to know more about the city and the surrounding area it’s for you. Your a New Yorker but don’t know much about our history this book is just great!

Everything you wanted to know about NYC history

Wow. This book has so many details that some may find it trivial. The book has been well researched and some will find it uninteresting at times but stay with it if you are a fan of the Big Apple. Be ready for lots of history from 1626 to 1840. LEarn what Peter Stuyvesant had for breakfast.

a wonderful history...

a wonderful history that reinforces the idea that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I found it factually interesting how NY evolved

I wasn't sure what to expect and devoting 67 hours is considerable. I was fascinated by how the authors took us from almost of the very beginning of lower Manhattan by the Dutch to the tremendous growth northward. Every aspect of the growth is detailed from politics, living conditions, transportation, class structure, financial, the constant struggle between 'capital' and the 'working man', women's roles, healthcare, poverty, disease living in close, putrid surroundings, media (newspapers, cable, telegraphs, telephone, electric lighting -- how these all evolved over time).

Must read for anyone interested in New York

This book is fantastic. Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace paint New York in unbelievable detail, and Victor Bevine does an amazing job narrating. This book is honestly a must read/listen for anyone interested in New York in general or in what daily life was like in America before 1900.

Thorough and interesting.

A very in-depth look into the history of NYC. I wish there was a way to download just one file rather than 6 though.

Loved the narrator

I’ve been listening to this for 5 months and I’ve started to read other things in his voice. It’s authoritative and inflects when I like it. Very epic and now i walk around nyc and see all the names and places I would’ve never understood, but now i know. On to the next one!

sweeping!

fascinating how all social and political ideas were played out in nyc. peristance of the same challenges over many decades

If you are native of NYC...

This is detailed history of NYC. Very Detailed. If you grew up in NYC and wanted to know about those who came before you, this is your book. You'll discover the people behind the neighborhoods you know and the street names that are so familiar. But the NYC you know is constantly evolving.

Gotham discusses NYC and its place in an ever changing USA.